


That Time in the Clearing by the Well

by anamatics



Category: Mai-HiME
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Lesbian Character POV Lesbian Character, Dark, Drama, F/F, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One Shot. In a scene out of time, Natsuki climbs to a place far up the mountain behind the school and finds herself in a place of memory but surrounded by the very new.  An alternate take on the confrontation between Shizuru and Natsuki at the end of the series, handled in a much better way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Time in the Clearing by the Well

**Author's Note:**

> While this does not fit into the commonly accepted canon of the events of the Carnival in Mai HiME, I believe that this could have very easily happened, given the context of the series and the way that events were playing out. This is dark and moody, and yet a challenge from another fan of the series - to make Kiyohime into a vehicle of encouragement for Natsuki and Shizuru's developing realization of their feelings towards each other.

There is an old well far up in the mountain above the school. The ruins of a monastery stand there, crumbling away into nothingness, but still the well remains, a bucket suspended on a rope over a hole into oblivion.

Kuga Natsuki only knows of this well because she and Shizuru found it together late one evening back in the spring of their friendship - when things had been new and innocent and not nearly as complicated. She's never liked it up there, the ruins of the monastery are too creepy for her liking - but she'd gone up with Shizuru as her friend had loved it so much. She'd always had a connection with the old ways, and Natsuki never had. She found them boorish and tiresome, but she did appreciate Shizuru's skill at them. They'd made tea the traditional way with water from that old well - boiled in a pot over a fire under the night sky.

She plants her foot and watches as it slides down the embankment that separates her from top of the hill. She's never gone up this way at night, in the rain, by herself. Defeat is everywhere around her now, and she feels lost by herself. Shizuru was always there to watch her back and pull her up the slopes as they scrambled up the hill. They would get so dirty, but Natsuki is now far filthier than she was ever when climbing with Shizuru. The mud cakes on the knees of her jeans and sticks under her fingers as she tries to find traction.

This was the place, she is sure of it, where Shizuru met that monster that she called her child. She gave it the name of a girl from an old legend, one connected very deeply to this place. There are carvings on the walls of that well just like there were all over the rest of the island - but these carvings are far more like Shizuru and like that monster than any of the others that Natsuki could remember seeing.

It was here that Shizuru had first told her the legend of Kiyohime.

This is not the time for memories. She has to find her. Shizuru has never been good at hiding and even now, in this moment of panic, Natsuki knows where to find her.

She has to find her.

She clenches her teeth and plants her foot one more time. This time digging the toe of her cheap canvas sneaker into the mud and pushing upwards as hard as she can.

There, she grabs hold of a small sapling and hauls herself into the clearing, mud smeared down her shirt.

Her bangs are in her eyes, she can't see anything in this darkness - all she can hear is the quiet sound of the rain falling around her and a low hissing that she cannot place. She closes her eyes, listening, trying to discern anything outside of those sounds - trying to see if she hears Shizuru at all. Being the wielders of such awful power does have some advantages, heightened senses and a far stronger sense of direction than anyone else Natsuki knew. She can use that power now without prejudice – for there is no guilt in trying to find a friend.

There, the quiet sound of sobbing, so different from the rainfall or that infernal hissing. Her eyes snapped open and she stepped towards the sound, her senses now completely focused on what has to be the sound of Shizuru quietly weeping.

Suddenly there is an angry snake head the size of her body in her path, its scales as smeared as mud as Natsuki's own front. It is hissing angrily and the hairs on the back of Natsuki's neck rise out of reflex.

 _It is going to strike now._

The hissing, she thinks, throwing herself to the side and out of the way of its strike.

It hits the ground just inches to her left, and Natsuki finds herself recalling, in horrified detail, all the other heads attached to this monster. She's fucked.

"Shizuru!" She shouts, scooting backwards and into the cover of the underbrush as fast as she can arrange. It won't strike as long as she's not in its territory. "Shizuru it's me! Call it off!"

The crying noise - or perhaps the blood rushing through Natsuki's ears - falters and an accented voice cuts through the rain. "Natsuki-?

She has to get to her; she has to hold her to tell her that she's sorry - that this whole carnival is a mistake. That whatever Suzushiro had said was a lie. Natsuki trusts Shizuru implicitly. There was no way that she would do that - to touch her in the way that the executive director was implying was borderline rape, something Natsuki knows that Shizuru is incapable of.

She is too good a person to do something like that, even with a secret as dark as the one that Suzushiro had thrust into the open as though it was a triumphant victory. Fujino Shizuru didn't have weaknesses – just this one Achilles heel.

She twists her body around, getting her legs underneath her once more. She's squinting into the darkness now, desperately trying to see where the monster of Shizuru's love for her is lurking. She cannot see it, but she knows it can see her, taste her on the air.

 _Fucking hate snakes..._

She pushes off, bounding through the underbrush like Duran would. He won't come now, and Natsuki has to act like him if she wants to get through this encounter. She has to get around to the other side of the clearing, where Shizuru is. Around this monster lies the one person that she desperately has to reach, to tell her it's alright.

The snake is fucking with her now.

Natsuki knows this because it is watching her as she moves through the undergrowth, its heads a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. Her presence is just a pest to it, but Natsuki knows that she should be safe as long as she stays in undergrowth and out of the clearing proper.

"Shizuru!" She shouts again, her voice carrying far better that Shizuru's had over the rain and wind and hissing of those infernal snakes. "Where are you?"

There is a sense of desperation in her voice that she did not know existed before. She's afraid of what this monster might do now that she's raised the alarm of its mistress, but she knows that she has to say something or Shizuru will go back to crying and she'll be eaten by the fucking snakes.

"Natsuki." The voice is clear across the clearing but Natsuki's been running this whole time and she doesn't know how that's possible.

 _Fuck Shizuru don't you fuck with me too._

She pauses, "I just want to talk to you." She says, staring into the darkness. The well is around here somewhere, she's going to fall in and die and it will all be Shizuru's fault.

 _Ugh._

Shizuru's voice is hurt-sounding and distant. "You made your opinion very clear Natsuki. You shyed away from my touch."

Natsuki's fists clenched and she stepped forward into the clearing. "I won't play your cat and mouse game." She is wet and dirty and cold and grumpy. She is terrified of that snake that stands between her and Shizuru, but she will not show that to anyone who does not deserve to know it - right now, Shizuru does not.

The snake's heads hiss louder and louder as she moves into the clearing. They are all around her now. Duran will not come to protect her.

"Don't you want your mistress to not cry?" She demands, scowling at the nearest head. It's scales are purplish even in this light, and Natsuki smiles. Shizuru had always loved that color.

The snakes retreat a little, as if debating this. Natsuki exhaled slowly. Her hands reflexively reaching for her guns that would not come. She is as useless as any of the others now. She cannot fight, only move as though she still can. It would be hard fooling this thing for long though.

Suddenly there was a snake head pressed up against her forehead and Natsuki can't go backwards fast enough to avoid another butting against her back. They're all around her now, hissing with a strange tone that Natsuki can't place.

The one up in her business, however, has to go. She reaches up and swats it right in the middle of the forehead. "Don't crowd me, bub." She says through clenched teeth. "Shizuru, get these idiots away from me."

She's being rude to the child now, and she knows that it could get mad and actually eat her now. She hopes that it will not, and that a swift kick in the pants is all that it needs in order to back the fuck off and actually let Natsuki talk to Shizuru without this overtly protective and yet really stupid creature that did not seem to understand that if it would just back off, She'd be able to make his mistress feel better about whatever it was that was bothering her so much and with it Natsuki should be able to just make things better. Natsuki hopes that this is the case at least.

She's lying, she can't fix this.

The snake hisses, indignant as it backs off, and Natsuki steps forward once more, nudged forward by another, perhaps more friendly snake. She reaches a hand behind her to pat it on the nose, only to quickly draw it back as the head snaps at her fingers.

 _I presume too much._

"Shizuru." Natsuki knows she sounds pathetic. She can't help it. She just wants things to go back to the way that they were. She's being bumped again by the snappy and aggressive head that she had hit earlier. She stumbles forward.

It is too dark to see what the expression on Shizuru's face was, but Natsuki knew that she could never make things right between them without explaining what had happened. Why she had flinched, why she had run away that time.

Shizuru had just vanished after that. Natsuki didn't know where she'd gone or what she'd done. Coming up here and crying in the rain is certainly not what Natsuki expects of her.

 _I hope you didn't do anything stupid._

"Shizuru look at me." Natsuki has her face in her hands, pulling those tearstained cheeks up to meet her own concerned stare. "I'm sorry." Her fingers caress that soft, soft skin. They're so dirty, but Shizuru does not seem to mind the streaks of dirt that mingle with her tears as Natsuki tries to soothe her tears.

Behind her, the snakes hiss approvingly as Shizuru throws her arms around Natsuki's shoulders and sobs even more loudly.

 _Glad y'all are so approving of misery._

"I didn't want you to know," she says, her voice hiccupping and her accent thicker than ever. Her hands ball up in the back of Natsuki's shirt and Natsuki traces small circles through the tick folds of the kimono, loathe to let go. "I didn't want you to know about this... this perversion of my love."

Natsuki does not know what to say. She does not think that she's always known of this, and yet a part of her always has. She knows that Shizuru is a wonderful and caring person and that this is just another facet of this.

"Is it really that bad?" She asks, pensively.

Shizuru's sobs quiet and her fingers tense along Natsuki's back. "What do you mean?" She asks, her voice muffled in Natsuki's shoulder.

Natsuki cannot find the words. She isn't even sure that they exist in any of the languages she speaks, all she wants Shizuru do know is that she's okay with this. She doesn't mind if Shizuru loves her like that, she almost likes it.

She reaches up to her shoulders and pulls Shizuru's hands away from them, pushing her best friend - or is it something else now - away from her. "Shizuru, I..." she trails off. She really has no idea how to say this.

An idea, a passing fancy, hits her and she leans in, pushing her toes into the mud so she gets the angle right. She's never kissed someone before, but this was the best possible way to express what she was trying to say.

 _I want you in my life._

 _I don't care if you love me._

 _I love you too._


End file.
